App turns kids' passcodes into parents' phone numbers

Work & Lifestyle

Missing Children Europe has created an app that changes children's lock screen passcode to their parent's number to help them memorize it.

In the age of the smartphone, there is very little need for people to learn each other’s phone numbers. While the benefits of this are clear, there is one troubling consequence — many children don’t know their parent’s numbers off by heart in an emergency situation. Now, Missing Children Europe has created Remumber, a simple app that changes a child’s lock screen pass code to their parent’s number to help them to memorize it.

To begin, users download the app and enter the phone number that needs to be learnt. Then, Remumber automatically changes the phone’s passcode to that sequence. That way, the child will gradually learn the number by regularly typing it in. The first four numbers have to be learned by heart but the child can ask for a clue if they get stuck on the rest of the digits. Once the sequence is learnt, the parent is informed by email and they can either choose to use Remumber to help the child learn another number or they can leave the first one in place.

The campaign has been launched across 14 European countries to coincide with the start of the summer holidays. How else could passwords be used to help kids learn important information?